I hope to spend every April of my life in Vancouver. Intoxicating blossoms. Rolling purple clouds spread to grey, break to sun and it's warm.
From the earthquake last year in Japan, objects are rolling and floating across the Pacific to British Columbia. This week, a container that stayed upright and held intact a Harley Davidson, a set of golf clubs. Someone moving his belongings, anticipating a life of fun. The tsunami snatched his equipment and sent it rusting to the shores of Haida Gwaii. The someone in Japan who lost these things also lost three family members, a house. A young man smiling, incredulous, at the news of the far away find.
Ironic, on the last day of the month, at the main intersection downtown, Georgia and Graville, a drum circle and dancers to honour the women who went missing from the Downtown Eastside. People, mostly First Nations people, wearing the photos of their missing loved ones on their t-shirts. Many if not most of the women were taken and slaughtered by Robert Pickton. Such huge disrespect for women, on his part, but also on the part of the police who did not seem to take the crime investigation seriously for too long. Members of the same Vancouver police force stood guard at the intersection while the drum dancing proceeded and the faces of women who died were renanimated by the gestures of the people who wore them in memory.
Home in the neighbourhood, dogwoods newly in bloom. Their flat leaves small stages displaying the light of the sun.